


family

by sungods



Series: don't go where i can't follow [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28981023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungods/pseuds/sungods
Summary: Her bottom lip trembles, ever so slightly, and Ambrose thinks to offer her a tissue before she takes a deep breath, blinks hard. “You know what happened, what my parents did?”
Series: don't go where i can't follow [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125806
Kudos: 5





	family

Frankly, Ambrose finds the woman somewhat unnerving. 

There’s nothing  _ wrong  _ with her, per say. She’s quietly sipping her offered tea, shifting in a way that makes him think she’s either extremely nervous or just naturally kinetic, always in motion. The same way Saige was. And that’s probably why he finds her both so odd and so familiar. Lilian looks just like her older sister, but instead of steel grey eyes he finds light blue. Like ice, or a winter sky. Saige had been a face well familiar to him since he was very young and had been a guiding hand for the majority of his life. She was something like an aunt, a shoulder to cry on, to commiserate with. Her death had hurt, and he’d mourned, but quietly, mindful that while he’d lost a dear friend, her family had lost a mother, a grandmother, a soulmate. She’d been a radiant person. When this woman had shown up and claimed to be her sister, he hadn’t quite believed it. Plenty of people looked similar, and there was something so different about the set of her mouth and the lines of her face. Physically, she was Saige’s spitting image, but where Ari’s mum had glowed with joy and life, this woman is more... muted. He has the impression that there is some deeply buried pain in her, that something in her past had dimmed the light in her eyes and deepened the creases on her brow. But that didn’t mean she was allowed to come into all their lives and start hurting them too. Bel had made her stance clear at the funeral, and Ari had barely spoken to her new-found aunt at all. This was not Ambrose’s field of play. He was just an observer to this, albeit as close as he always has been to this family.

She was both too close and very much removed. Luca could invite her into his home and offer her a drink but it didn’t mean she was staying. 

The kids have been sent upstairs to do their homework, and Ari’s in her room as she always is, now. So it's just them three in the kitchen, Luca tracing his finger around the rim of his own mug. Deliberating. Ambrose figures he might as well keep quiet. This is Luca’s house and Luca’s kids that this woman wants to know, had managed to find, somehow.

“Thank you for the tea. It’s lovely.” Lilian’s pale eyes flick to him briefly, then to Luca. The other man nods absently, sets their cup down.

“How exactly did you find us?”

“Phonebook.” At their raised eyebrows, she shrugs, a faint flush on her cheeks. “I travel a lot for my work. I got a contract for the next four years in Del Sol, and I knew that you probably lived somewhere in the suburbs around where you’ve laid Saige to rest. It took a few pages to find you. Morrow isn’t a common name in these parts, it seems.”

“And you did all this because you wanted to meet us. Ari, the kids.” Luca leans back on the kitchen stool now, arms folded. Ambrose has the distinct impression of a bear standing on its hind legs to defend its cubs. 

“Being sent here by my firm was a happy accident, nothing more. And as I said at my sister’s funeral, I’ve spent... most of my adult life, regretting the decisions I made as a fourteen year old. First it was fear, and shame, and then I tried to set my childhood aside to live. I always thought I’d have more time.” Her bottom lip trembles, ever so slightly, and Ambrose thinks to offer her a tissue before she takes a deep breath, blinks hard. “You know what happened, what my parents did?”

Luca considers. “In bits and pieces, from Bel. You outed her, your parents kicked her out, and you never once tried to reach out and apologise, or help. Not in decades.”

Ambrose doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone look as purely guilty as Lilian does now. She nods, shoulders sagging. “I didn’t, and I regret it every day.” 

“Our parents were very demanding. We were the last of an old family line, and moderately wealthy, and due to this they decided to demand perfection from the both of us, Saige especially. It was… difficult. Obviously we were well aware of our privileged status, especially where we were living. A small town of miners and loggers. But we had eyes on us, constantly. All wanted to gain the favour of our parents, who’d managed to keep up the family name even when the money was not nearly as much as it once was. So our lives became a constant competition of sorts, a race in which the prize was always a step ahead, out of our collective grasp. Parental love and approval. That was it. That was all. Looking back now, I am struck by our mutual desperation to achieve something that really should have just been provided unquestioningly and without us having to fight for it. We were pushing our proverbial boulders up hills, so to speak.”

She smiles bitterly at her own joke, fingers steepled together in front of her lips.

“Actually, upon reflection I was meant as an encouragement for my sister to do better, not really as a fully realised child who also needed a level of care and affection which my parents could barely afford for their first. A replacement of sorts should she fail in their eyes. And she didn’t. She was brilliant in every way that mattered to our parents, a perfect heir. With that level of superiority over me, it would have been easy for her to become cruel, but she never did. She loved me, she protected me, she helped me when it seemed no one else would. It was us against the rest of the world for our early childhood. And then we began to grow up.

“Being only two years younger than her, we still remained close during the first few years of our first forays into a life less governed by our parents. You knew her, longer than I did actually, and you know this- people were just… drawn to her. Her brilliance in academics was balanced by her kindness and she quickly became everyone’s favourite student and friend. I was not so lucky. Relatively withdrawn with no great skill to speak of, I faded even quicker into the background for our peers then for our parents. But still, she would take time out of her increasingly busy life to check on me, to make sure I was happy. I wasn’t, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, so I hid it from her. I loved her, I hated her, she was everything good in my life yet, in my eyes, the cause of my misery. I was twelve. My deepest, most shameful thought was how much better my life would be if I’d been born first. Maybe I’d be the golden daughter then. Or maybe, even worse, I wondered how my life would look if she’d just never existed. I was a jealous child. That really is all I can say to rationalise my actions.”

There is a very pregnant pause, one which causes Ambrose’s discomfort to multiply exponentially. He’d known, in bits and pieces, mostly from talking to Ari when they’d been much younger, that Saige had a rough childhood even prior to her forced outing, that it had been one of little love and pressure that had been unreasonable for anyone, let alone a child to bear. The urge to call his parents suddenly wells up in him. They weren’t perfect, not by a long stretch, but through it all he’s never felt lacking of their care or less deserving of their compassion. There had been childish resentment on his end, sometimes, but in a family of five he’d never felt like he’d had to fight for the simple knowledge that his parents  _ cared _ , no matter how far he strayed from their expectations.

Ambrose thinks of his son, asleep upstairs, sharing his godchild’s crib, and vows,  _ Those kids will never have to fight for love. Not if I can help it. _

Something shifts in Luca’s eyes and he’s leaned back on his chair now, although the nervous tension in his shoulders and face has not lessened. Lilian doesn’t seem to notice this change, her gaze locked into the depths of her own mug like she’s ashamed to meet their eyes.

“I’m sure you both know what happens next. Saige begins dating a classmate of hers in secret. I find out. In a moment of weakness I still regret deeply, I tell our parents.”

Before Luca or Ambrose can speak, she laughs, curling her fingers around her cup like it can protect her. “You know, I don’t even remember what led up to me betraying her. We’d been fighting, over something so trivial and minor that I don’t even recall an idea of what it was. From our ages, it could have been anything, really. But the end result… I ruined everything. Our parents’ dream for her came crashing down, and took her, the real Saige, the sister who I loved even as I destroyed her, with it. I took… everything from her. I ruined her life.”

“That’s not true.”

It’s so quiet that Ambrose is startled out of the horrified reverie Lilian’s words have put him in. Luca’s green eyes are fixed on Lilian’s face, steady. There’s judgement there, and who wouldn’t have that? Of them, Luca’s known the pain of parents who learn too much too fast, with terrible results. But there is also that endless compassion that Ari told him about as they’d discussed her potential partners on that balcony so many years ago. She’d been so anxious and scared, terrified of making the wrong choice. But he’d asked her- “ _ Who would you be happy waking up with, every day for the rest of your life? _ ” And she’d smiled, and in that moment, she’d realised. It had been that kindness that Ari had seen and understood and needed, when she sometimes didn’t have for herself. And now, to  _ Lilian _ of all people… 

“You’re right that you shattered your parents’ expectations for Saige. But she would have buckled under the weight of them eventually, and you as well. You’re right that for many years afterwards, Saige was alone, and that fault lies on your shoulders. But her life… It wasn’t ruined overall, Lilian. She struggled and she strived and she was happy, in the end. She fell in love, had a child, friends and family who loved her the way she deserved to be. That cold thing you experienced… That’s not something you can survive for long.”

“You did hurt her, I won’t dispute that. You hurt her, badly, and you continued to hurt her by not contacting her for the rest of her life. Don’t you know what your open support for her would’ve done, for the both of you? But you came too late. And I don’t know your beliefs about the afterlife or whatever, but she’ll never hear you say an apology to  _ us _ meant for her.”

Lilian is crying now, silently, tears sliding down the grooves in her cheeks. She nods, and chokes out, “I always meant to. But like I said at her funeral… I was afraid, and ashamed. There’s nothing I can do to fix what’s been done now.”

She takes a fortifying breath and pulls a tissue out from somewhere on her purse, dabbing at her eyes with quick, hard strokes, like she’s trying to press the tears back into her skin. Once she’s done, she tucks it back, levelling clear blue eyes back at them, and Ambrose is reminded of a mountain stream, clear and cold and fast moving. Unyielding.

“Which is why I came. I’m not getting any younger, and ever since my parents died, I’ve simply been… Alone. I knew that she’d built a family for herself. It was always my intention to make my way to it and connect with it, if I were allowed. I understand if you need me to go, if the sight of me is too painful for you all especially so soon after your loss. But I want to know you all and understand who my sister was to you. I’d like to know-” She cuts herself off at this, her hands trembling slightly, and Ambrose fills in the gap himself.  _ I’d like to know a family who truly cares, I’d like to know what I’ve been missing all my life. I’d like to know the spaces that my sister filled, the love she gave to you all. I want to be more than what I was. _

She shakes her head, a sharp, quick gesture that reminds him of a heron or some other slim, swift bird. “I’m willing to go if you need me to leave. Just say the word. But give me a chance to get to know my niece, your family. Please.”

Here, Ambrose knows he concedes to Luca. But deep down there really is, as there always seems to be, only one choice. He’s been friends with this person for a while now, for a fair chunk of their adult lives. What’s fair, in this scenario? What’s the right thing to do, for everyone in this situation, from the children upstairs, for their mother? For the grieving widow on her way home right now? For the woman, so clearly regretful and tormented by her own actions?

Ambrose knows the answer before it’s spoken. After all, Luca’s always been unceasingly kind.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if you read all this, thank you!! i know it's pretty different from the usual format but as you can see there's a LOT of background to get through in order for all of this to make sense so far. thank you for your ongoing support of don't go where i can't follow and i hope you'll keep being interested!!


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